Chance at Columbia CVN, Penn MSE in CIS, Stanford HCP, Yale MS CS

Graduate School
1

I’m planning on applying to a few CS or Statistics masters programs as listed above. Here are my stats/info:

Undergraduate School: One of CMU / Brown / Duke / Northwestern, Class of 2019
U. GPA: 3.65/4.00

Letters of Rec: 1 Strong (current employer), 1 Okay (past employer), 1 Weak (college prof, I really messed around in college and did literally nothing and never attended lecture, so I only have one recommendation from college and it will likely be weak)

Internship / Work Experience:
Currently been employed at a top tier hedge fund (Bridgewater / Two Sigma / Citadel) as a software engineer (1.5 yrs)
Worked at a quantitative trading firm as a quant trader intern
Interned at one of Atlassian / Salesforce / Expedia

It’s a bit unfortunate because I think I work at a very prestigious firm, but I’m not sure if admissions committees will know enough or care enough? I guess my saving grace is that adcoms are department-based, so I’m assuming that professors in CS should be aware of these firms (especially at Columbia / Penn). Do let me know if this is a plus or no one will care. For what its worth, 70% of my colleagues went to Ivy/Stanford/MIT/CMU so, definitely a top tier place.

GRE: Haven’t taken it yet, but plan to in a week or two. I consider myself to be a great tester, so I’m expecting 167+ on Verbal and 170 on Quant

Research/achievements during college: Literally nothing
Research/achievements before college: Pretty cool research, USAMO

Honestly, I’m mostly worried about my abysmal GPA and poor letters of rec / involvement during college.

2

Well, one thing: the prestige of a tech firm is based on what they make and how people view them, not where their engineers went to school. That said Bridgewater is well known within the industry and your CS professors will likely know it. Two Sigma is vaguely familiar to me and Citadel less so (I work in tech) but professors who pay attention to these things may know those more.

Your GPA was not abysmal. A 3.65 is a great GPA.

Having two employer letters is not a great endeavor, unless these are purely professional programs. I’d go the other way around - two from professors, one from a strong prior employer. That said, if you can’t get two strong letters from professors this setup is fine; just know that it will weaken you.

Nothing you did before college matters for a graduate school committee, unless you invented something cool. Your involvement during college won’t matter as much since you have work experience, but the lack of strong letters from academic professors will matter.